


is there anything wrong in that

by bookhobbit



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Intercrural Sex, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Transphobia, Lack of Communication, M/M, Morning After, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 01:46:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17214707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: Strange and Norrell find themselves dealing with a very rude awakening one morning. Well, Strange does. Norrell, not surprisingly, seems to prefer not to deal with it at all.





	is there anything wrong in that

**Author's Note:**

> Jonathan Strange's imagination is VERY colourful and I do not take any responsibility for it. This whole thing is a weird mix of "faintly trashy tropey nonsense" and like "internalized queerphobia hecks you up" so.....enjoy???? I don't even know anymore, y'all.
> 
> Unbeta'd, please let me know about any typos!

The morning light would have been creeping in, if there was any morning light. Neither of the magicians had seen dawn in seven days.

Nevertheless, Gilbert Norrell had a well-tuned schedule and a good sense of how long he had been sleeping. It was morning now, and even if the sun didn't know it, he did.

It was an unusually dishabille Mr Norrell that greeted that dawnless day. His cap was not on his head, which caused him to feel chilly. As he sat up, it became abruptly and dreadfully obvious that the reason he was chilly was that no other part of him was particularly clothed either.

Softly but with feeling - for the second time in his life - Mr Norrell said, "Oh, _shit_."

Had Jonathan Strange been awake, he would have been delighted. Until last night, he had hardly heard Mr Norrell utter an oath at all, and now he was developing a taste for the experience.

But Strange was not awake. He was much less consistent in his sleep habits than Mr Norrell, and had no care for the fact that it was morning. One arm was thrown over Mr Norrell's waist, one leg hooked over his hip.

He, too, was remarkably free of any little inconveniences such as nightshirts.

Mr Norrell took a deep breath to prepare himself for the monumental task of extracting himself from Strange's embrace without waking him. This took much careful maneuvering, which was significantly hampered by Mr Norrell's reluctance to touch Strange's bare skin any more than he had to.

Mr Norrell's clothes were not in any state to be put back on, either. He looked around the room for some sort of dressing-gown or nightshirt or anything which could be used to cover himself, but Strange's exasperating habit of being insufficiently dressed during the day apparently extended to the night as well, judging by the evidence of this room.

Mr Norrell's gaze fell on the bare shoulder peeking out of the blankets. He blushed.

But there was something that might be draped. He pulled a quilt from the sandwich of coverings on the bed and wrapped it around himself as thoroughly as he could. This was, at least, slightly warmer, although not as warm as the bed, with their shared body heat, had been. And he was covered.

Mr Norrell told himself: beds are not to be thought of under any circumstances. And banged his shin against the washing-up stand for his trouble.

The muffled screech of agony and the clank must have woken Strange up. He sat up suddenly, revealing a really quite distressing amount of bare chest, and shook his hair out of his face. "What?" he said.

Mr Norrell shuffled away. "I am going back to my own room," he said, and banged into a dressing-table.

Strange rubbed his eyes and looked at Mr Norrell. His gaze traveled up the quilt, down to Mr Norrell's bare feet, up to Mr Norrell's bare head. His eyes widened. For one odd moment, there was a manic smile on his face, and then he seemed to banish it.

"So you may continue your rest uninterrupted," said Mr Norrell, attempting to back away further and nearly tripping on his quilt.

"That's my blanket," said Strange.

"I will return it when I have, er, more appropriate garments to substitute for it." Mr Norrell gathered the quilt more closely around him and looked wildly around for a clear path to the exit. A stack of books beside the door arrested his attention. "Mr Strange, is that the Stokesey? The Stokesey should not leave the library, it is not in a condition for it."

Strange stretched, a languid sort of motion that seemed designed to catch Mr Norrell's eye. "You didn't complain last night."

Norell muttered to the floor, "I was not in a frame of mind to notice last night."

"I remember," said Strange. "Should we not discuss that?"

"I do not want to discuss it. I remember it all perfectly well. I am sure you were overwrought, what with one thing and another, and I was...in a weak state." Mr Norrell clasped his hands together and did not look up at Strange. "We need never mention it. We may forget the entire incident happened, for the sake of both our dignity."

"Ah," said Strange stiffly. "Yes, of course."

"I should not like it said that I took advantage of you--"

Strange laughed a little, harsh and abrupt. "I should think given our respective physical abilities that it would be _quite_ the reverse. If you only wished to comfort me..."

"Well. Let us say that neither of us took advantage of the other, but that we were both in a mental state unfit to make good decisions." Mr Norrell pressed the palms of his hands together. "We shall say no more about it. We will be friends again. If you wish."

"Yes," said Strange. Mr Norrell looked up at him, finally. He was leaning forward on the bed, perilously close to revealing the rest of his body, but this was not what distracted Mr Norrell. What distracted Mr Norrell was the odd, frozen little smile on Strange's face.

"If you excuse me, I would like to go and make myself decent," said Mr Norrell, turning and picking his way to the door, grabbing bits of clothing as he went. On the way out, he plucked the Stokesey from the pile and held it to his chest.

Strange watched him go. The frozen little smile was beginning to turn sour.

-

For lack of anything else to do, Strange made breakfast. He wasn't as good a cook as Mr Norrell, and Mr Norrell was a terrible cook. Arabella had repeatedly told him the right time to make a soft-boiled egg, but he couldn't remember and anyway that required clocks. Clocks all turned to midnight here, all the time.

Hard-boiled eggs and toast it would have to be. He could, at least, make a cup of tea. And there was marmalade in the pantry. No coffee. No chocolate for Mr Norrell; Hurtfew would have some, but Hurtfew was a house and a half away.

The mood of furious anguish that had led him to seek solace in Mr Norrell's arms was gone now; heavy as a storm, gone as quickly. Well. Could you call it seeking solace, if it started by pinning someone against a wall and kissing him as an alternative to screaming at him again?

Strange had to make a conscious effort not to touch his lips. It hadn't been a good kiss, at first. No one was at their best when startled.

Did it count as solace if you had started off with the honest intention of being fucked until you couldn't think straight, because that would make your mind turn off?

Did it count as solace if it only halfway worked?

Did it count as solace if you couldn't stop _thinking_ about it?

Strange set the eggs and toast down on the table in a fog. Mr Norrell naked had not been what he had been expecting for a great many reasons. Had he _had_ expectations about Mr Norrell naked? He had certainly not expected to see it. Nor had he expected the particular...configuration? Not that he minded.

Which was the whole point, really. He hadn't minded _any_ of it.

"You made breakfast," said Mr Norrell behind him. Strange dropped his teacup, but fortunately only onto the table. The flurry of getting up to find a cloth and mopping up the mess and pouring more tea gave him time to compose himself.

"It's eggs and toast," said Strange, stirring cream into his new tea.

"I can see," said Mr Norrell. He cut an egg open. "These yolks are almost green, Mr Strange."

"That happens when you boil them too long, but they're still edible," said Strange. He began peeling one as an alternative to looking at Mr Norrell.

Mr Norrell hmm-d and cut his own egg into thin slices. Strange wondered if this, too, was a way of avoiding eye contact. Mr Norrell had dozens. Strange ought to ask for pointers.

"Mr Norrell," he began, "About last night..."

"I don't wish to talk about it."

"But it seems churlish, not to say avoiding the elephant in the room, to forget the subject forever."

"We were lonely, we committed an indiscretion," said Mr Norrell. "We might have expected as much. In this darkness. Cut off from all the rest of humanity."

"I don't believe you've ever been lonely in your life," said Strange.

Mr Norrell snapped, "I have _always_ been lonely, but I was _used_ to it before you."

There was a moment's silence. Mr Norrell seemed to feel that he had revealed too much; he looked down at his hands. Strange was too busy wondering about the exact implications of that sentence to pay much attention to his expression.

He said, "We can at least discuss what I...saw."

Mr Norrell's mouth twisted. It was an expression that, for a moment, reminded Strange of Childermass. "I would rather not speak of that either. I am how I am."

Strange tried to think of a polite way of saying, _but you have a woman's body!_ or _should I call you Miss Norrell really?_ He said instead, "Are you a woman? Secretly?"

Mr Norrell flinched as if he'd been struck; an expression of horror and despair crossed his face before he seemed to iron it away. "I am not a woman. I am a man. I have a body which does not suit me; therefore, I mold it to fit my needs as best I can."

"That sounds uncomfortable."

"Not as uncomfortable as the alternative," said Mr Norrell shortly.

There was another long pause.

"You must have been terribly disappointed," said Mr Norrell to the table.

"Disappointed? No." Strange leaned his chin on one hand. "Slightly relieved. It's been so long since I had my hand on another man's concern I was afraid I'd forget how it worked from the other side." He drummed his fingers on the table and added, "I did want you to fuck me, though."

Mr Norrell made a noise that Strange couldn't gauge and buried his face in his hands.

"Don't worry," Strange said. "I wasn't too much dismayed. Besides, there are ways that don't involve having your own personal cock. Arabella and I--"

"I do _not_ want to hear about your conjugal relations with your wife," said Mr Norrell so loudly that the hands barely muffled him. "And I do not want to discuss any more of this."

"Very well," said Strange, laying his hands flat on the table and staring at them. "You brought it back up, though."

"I've finished with the topic now."

"Very well."

An awful silence stretched out as Strange ate a boiled egg with toast. It was rather black toast, because Strange always forgot he'd put the toasting-fork against the hearth and left it too long. Mr Norrell was eating it without complaint - a bad sign.

"You showed me," said Strange. "I mean, the body. Yours. Willingly. When we went to bed, after--"

"It was relevant to the business at hand."

Which was a very respectable way of putting it, Strange thought. "But you could have turned me down for the second bit."

"I do not wish to discuss my motivation, either." Mr Norrell's fingers around his teacup were going white.

"Oh." Strange stirred his tea. It was moments like these that he wished for the ticking of the clocks to return. Even if they didn't keep time, something to break the endless silence would be very welcome.

"You were in an unhappy mood last night," said Mr Norrell.

Strange was too annoyed with Mr Norrell to resist snipping. "You could tell, could you? Was it the swearing or the yelling?"

"Both," said Mr Norrell coldly. "What was it about? I couldn't quite understand what you were saying."

"Oh. I was angry with you for erasing my book, because now it's gone from England. It doesn't seem so very important now. Far too much else to do."

"Yes," said Mr Norrell, putting his teacup down. "We were going to try to fortify the doors, weren't we? And you wanted to find a way to communicate with the outside world--oh."

"Don't worry. I won't go off again." Strange stood up and smiled a bright, brittle smile. "I am certain we can find something together, if we put our minds to it."

"Mirrors, I think, are very promising," said Mr Norrell.

-

They went to the library.

This was, as it happened, very bad.

Mr Norrell didn't seem to notice the immense and crushing awkwardness of working in a place where you had just recently been brought off. He sat down in his usual chair by the fire, picked up a book, and put his spectacles upon his nose. Strange slunk over to the bookshelf and looked aimlessly for something that had mirrors in it. Mr Norrell's books were organized alphabetically by subject and author, which Strange hated. It was always so difficult to find what he wanted.

He grabbed the Pale, too impatient to bother with searching more, and sat down in the chair on the other side of the room.

Mr Norrell was sunk in study. How he could immediately turn his concentration on and keep it on was something that always eluded Strange. At the moment, for example, Strange kept being distracted by the dark corner in which they had ended up last night. It was unassumingly book-free, out of the light of the fire. Strange had gone into it to sulk, as it happened.

It looked so dreadfully innocuous now.

Strange fidgeted and looked down at the Pale. He wondered if there was any sort of spell for creating, as it were, an implement that could be used in the manner of a cock, which would impart to its wearer all the sensations of a real appendage. There wouldn't be one in Mr Norrell's library, that was certain. In fact, it was unlikely to be written down. Would Mr Norrell like that, if Strange could invent one? Would it make him feel -- more himself? Would he then swive Strange with it if Strange asked very nicely?

Strange jolted himself out of the mental image that ensued and hurriedly began to read Pale. It was nothing to do with mirrors, although at the speed he was going through it wasn't very easy to see what it was, in fact, about. Something to do with the language of Faerie.

He glanced over at Mr Norrell, who had settled himself down completely and was making notes in his tiny, neat handwriting. Periodically he would bring his pencil to his mouth and tap his lip in thought. In the warm light of the fire, he looked cozy and contented, untouched by the type of thought that troubled Strange presently. Almost too normal -- but that was absurd, you couldn't be too normal.

Perhaps Mr Norrell did not want him. Or had Strange been so little suited to his taste in bedsport? He had been, at the time, very enthusiastic. Strange tried to suppress the memory of _how_ enthusiastic, but it didn't work. The sight of Mr Norrell's eyes rolling back in his head, the feeling of him pressing himself up against Strange, their thighs together, the little gasp when Strange had rubbed against him--

No. Mr Norrell had enjoyed that, or else he was an extremely good actor.

In fact, now Strange came to think of it, he was reasonably certain Mr Norrell was in love with him. He glanced over at Mr Norrell, who was frowning in thought and turning pages apparently without a care in the world. It would certainly explain a great many small mysteries. Strange wondered why he hadn't realized it before. He supposed it was no wonder that a lonely man with no friends might fall in love with the one person who shared his passions. Why, perhaps he had been in love with Strange since they had met.

But then why did he not want a repeat of the experience?

Strange wished Arabella was here. Arabella would have known. He realized that he had technically been unfaithful to Arabella. A sick wave of guilt swept over him.

But then, after all, the circumstances were extremely unusual. He did not think she would grudge him a comfort in this wretched darkness. Perhaps not even a repeated one. He certainly wouldn't grudge her one. And it was not the same as betraying her with another woman, after all, was it? He and Mr Norrell were stuck here perhaps for the rest of their lives, and wouldn't it be dreadful to be alone without any relief at all for all that time, if there was someone here who wanted it too?

Strange looked over at Mr Norrell again.

"Are you well, Mr Strange?" said Mr Norrell, emerging from his apparent fog. If it looked a little too convincing, Strange could not tell.

"Yes," said Strange. "But I don't think this book is going to help us."

"I shouldn't think so. That is _De Tractatu Magicarum Linguarum_ , whyever did you pick it up? Try the Discourses instead."

Strange got up and found _Discourses upon the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness._ The reminder of how much a scholar Mr Norrell was, and how focused upon his work he was -- in short the reminder of Mr Norrell's true personality -- had thrown a bucket of ice-water over his imaginings. He ought not put Mr Norrell through such travails. He was a man who desired only a simple and peaceful life, insofar as that was possible as a magician.

Strange promised himself to forget about the encounter.

-

They spent the day or so going through the books and pulling out everything that had to do with spells of traveling, sending messages, or asking questions. This was a pleasingly distracting occupation, because it mostly involved quickly skimming various books and therefore required minimal long periods of sitting down and concentrating.

After that, thought, the real research began. Strange began with his back to Mr Norrell, that first day. He set himself down with the large pile that Mr Norrell had designated for him, and got to work sifting through it.

There was much in the pile that might be useful. Strange paused to make a note of something to do with bees. Bees were of great utility in magic, although he thought of them more as a clarifier than a communicator. But they were social, were they not...

His mind trailed off onto a new path. Mr Norrell in that corner, his leg pressed tightly between Strange's, flushed with embarrassment and effort and, Strange thought, enjoyment that he would not allow himself to admit to. He had buried his face in Strange's shoulder when he was close, as if ashamed to show the expression he would make. When Strange had taken him to bed, too, he had flung an arm over his face as Strange began to touch him. Strange had thought it odd at the time: bared in every respect, he had nevertheless felt the need to cover his eyes, as if they were the least respectable thing about him.

Strange took a slow and careful breath. He wanted to do it again, and to pull Mr Norrell's arm away from his face, to fuck him with their eyes locked. He wanted to watch each expression form and dissolve, give way to a new one as Strange moved. Or no -- Mr Norrell didn't want to be fucked. What would it be like if Strange instead rode him, how would he look? Perhaps Strange would tie his arms to the bedhead, keep him from hiding himself...

Oh god, thought Strange, putting the book very solidly back on his lap. He'd been supposed to _forget_ about this.

"Are you well?" said Mr Norrell from behind him.

Strange coughed a little theatrically. "I do feel a little under the weather -- perhaps a chair closer to the fire."

"Ah! come sit beside me, Mr Strange," said Mr Norrell solicitously. "It does not do to take a small cold lightly. It can quickly become more serious."

Strange smiled archly to cover his turmoil and sat down beside Mr Norrell. He studied Mr Norrell's face as Mr Norrell went back to his book, with only a little side glance at Strange. The roundish cheeks, the inelegant nose, the small and unprepossessing mouth, the flatness of the expressions. He was a plain man. There was nothing particular for Strange to desire there. No doubt such a face could inflame passion in someone, but it would not be Strange. Should not be Strange.

In his bedroom that night, the one candle extinguished, the visions he'd driven from his head came back. Mr Norrell's face the way it would be when Strange made him let go of his dignity, his fears, his doubts. Had Mr Norrell ever been with anyone before? Would Strange be the first to see this?

Strange screwed his eyes shut and covered his mouth with one hand. The other was now occupied. In the theater of his mind, he saw Mr Norrell naked again in the bedroom, the way he had turned his head and covered himself shyly with his hands when Strange had lifted his shirt. The way his hair had felt under Strange's hand when Strange had reached to kiss him against the library wall. The soft oh God, oh God, oh God when Strange had pressed their thighs together, had begun to move. How his head had looked dipping down to kiss Strange's stomach, his hip. The clumsy eagerness with which he had dipped lower, and the way his thin yellow-white hands had felt in Strange's hair when Strange had done the same just before.

The tiny gasp, so small Strange had not been sure he'd heard it: "Jonathan--"

Strange shuddered and bit his own lip. If he was honest, he'd timed this so he'd end on that mental image.

He wiped his hands on a handkerchief and pulled his shirt back down.

God, this was untenable. He couldn't spend every night driving himself into a frenzy thinking about Mr Norrell's lips. The words shouldn't even go together. Why couldn't he stop thinking about this? It had been good, certainly, but not so much better than any other encounter that it ought to occupy this much of his thoughts.

What was it that Strange couldn't let go?

-

Strange tried to behave himself the next day by the device of sitting crosswise to Mr Norrell, so that he could either look at him or look away from him as requirements dictated. Generally, this meant keeping his face studiously turned away, except when some thought of The Night (as Strange now thought of it) intruded. When this happened, Strange turned himself to face Mr Norrell with great rigidity of form and stared at his face for some minutes, trying to return himself to the state of mind he'd been in three weeks ago, when Mr Norrell was not what Strange would describe as attractive by any stretch of the imagination.

He still _wasn't_. Strange knew that. It was just that he was a _challenge_ now.

Mr Norrell did not seem to notice the staring; Strange wondered how.

"What is it that you wanted to communicate with the outside world?" asked Mr Norrell, tapping his notes with his pencil. "Speech, or writing?"

"Oh. Either one, I should think." Strange turned towards him. "Have you found something?"

"I had only thought that if you wanted writing, we could try to use birds."

Strange laughed a little. "Messenger pigeons?"

"Don't be silly. Ravens."

"Of course." Strange stood up and wandered over to Mr Norrell's chair. "Have you found something?"

"Only a thought. The King often sent messages with ravens, did he not? We could do the same."

Strange made a thoughtful noise and sat down on the arm of Mr Norrell's chair.

"Don't ruin the furniture," said Mr Norrell, but Strange paid him no mind.

"That's The Language of Birds you're reading, isn't it? I can see why the idea came to you. Would we put messages in their beaks, then, and how would they find their way to the right person?" Strange leaned forward and touched the passage in question, balancing carefully. His hair just brushed Mr Norrell's cheek.

For a moment, he thought he heard Mr Norrell's breathing pause, and then resume more slowly, as if in an attempt to control it. "Yes," said Mr Norrell, and there was definitely a bit too much care in his speech. "That is, no. We would tie them to their feet, most likely, and enchant them to be carried by the wind to the right place."

"But we are in Faerie. Can ravens travel worlds?" Strange tested his hypothesis by purposefully overbalancing so that he had to catch himself with one hand against Mr Norrell's thigh.

Mr Norrell closed his eyes for just a moment and cleared his throat. "Mythologically, yes. But the spell would-- the spell -- Mr Strange, I really must ask you to move your hand."

"Must you?" said Strange, sliding it down to Mr Norrell's knee and rubbing his thumb gently against the side of it. "There. The spell."

"We could go to some uninhabited part of Our World to cast it, so as to avoid trapping any more English magicians in the Darkness. Perhaps America."

"America is inhabited, as you know very well," said Strange, drawing gentle circles on Mr Norrell's knee.

"You know what I mean," said Mr Norrell, pinching his fingers together very tightly. "They have snowy wastes and vast deserts and so forth, unfit for human habi... Must you do that?"

"Do you want me to stop?"

Mr Norrell cleared his throat again and rubbed his hands together. "It is of less significance what I want than what I consider to be a sensible decision. You see, if we are to live together for the next hundred or so years, we must proceed with caution, without haste, with diligence - oh..."

Strange had moved his hand back up to Mr Norrell's thigh and was trailing his fingers along the inside. "Do you want me to stop?"

Mr Norrell's head thumped against the back of the chair. "Mr Strange--"

"Yes?" said Strange, his hand slowly moving further up. He watched Mr Norrell's eyes squeeze tighter, watched him bite his lip. "Did you want to tell me something, Mr Norrell?"

"Not in front of the books," said Mr Norrell.

Strange felt a maniacal grin cross his face. He stood up and took Mr Norrell's hand. Mr Norrell pulled himself out of the chair, and Strange dragged him across the room.

"Oh, not the same corner," complained Mr Norrell. "Have you no shame?"

"It's out of the way of the books," said Strange, and Mr Norrell shrugged.

Strange reached over and kissed him, feeling suddenly and desperately full of light. Far too late, he remembered that he was not supposed to do this, that he had meant to be behaving. This was much better. He pressed them side-by-side into the corner and slide his arms around Mr Norrell's waist, pulling him closer. Mr Norrell's hands were drifting up his chest and suddenly they found the lapels of his waistcoat, held tight to them. Strange made a small noise. He wished Mr Norrell would push him against the wall, or pull his hair, or take those thin hands and wrap them around his throat, not tight enough to squeeze, just enough that Strange could feel it...

But if Mr Norrell was not going to take charge of matters, then Strange would. He pulled briskly at the buttons on Mr Norrell's breeches -- "Don't break them" said Mr Norrell half into Strange's mouth -- and rucked his shirt up as far as it would go -- not very far with the waistcoat in the way. Strange frowned and unbuttoned that too, best he could between Mr Norrell's half-angry half-frantic kisses. There was still that curious undercorset to consider, but it would do for Strange's purposes.

He pressed Mr Norrell face-first against the wall. "This is terribly discourteous," said Mr Norrell, then made a noise all out of keeping with his words when Strange reached down past his stomach and began to touch him. Strange had thought of a rather good alternative to fucking Mr Norrell, since Mr Norrell would not like that. He began to unbutton his own breeches.

Mr Norrell was making a string of soft distracted noises. Strange wanted to watch the slice of his face that was visible against the wall, to see if he was more unguarded like this, but right at this moment he was too busy trying to keep one hand moving against Mr Norrell while the other fumbled with the breech buttons and with the underbreeches. Finally they were down.

"Don't--" said Mr Norrell.

"I won't," said Strange against Mr Norrell's shoulder, "I won't, just like this--" and he pressed himself between Mr Norrell's thighs.

"Oh," said Mr Norrell, "Yes."

Strange began to move. He looked at Mr Norrell's face as he did, watched his eyes screw up and his mouth flatten out as he tried not to make more noise, watched it open as he failed. That was almost better than the feeling of Mr Norrell's thighs against him. Though as Strange moved his hand faster, Mr Norrell wiggled more and more, and that made it better, too. Strange braced himself against the wall with his free hand and bit his own lip, thrust harder as Mr Norrell seemed to begin to come undone.

He mustn't close his eyes. He watched to watch Mr Norrell as that happened.

It was a pinched little expression, a scrunched and half-hidden thing that Mr Norrell tried to fit against the wall, but Strange could see the way his mouth trembled and closed tight, the way his hands closed restlessly, the way his neck arched. It was a slice of triumph, of uncovering, to see how his breath quickened and hear the little groan he gave as he pressed himself into Strange's hand.

The movement was quite enough to finish Strange off not very much later. He didn't let himself close his eyes, either. He watched instead as Mr Norrell's expression shifted to a soft shocked awareness, as he gave a long sigh.

It took just a moment for Strange to recover himself enough to draw away and hand Mr Norrell a handkerchief. In that moment, he watched Mr Norrell realize what they had just done.

"I'm sorry," said Strange, looking away as Mr Norrell cleaned and neatened himself. He told himself that he was too busy with the breeches-buttons to look.

"It was hardly a single-person affair," said Mr Norrell distantly. "I did, of course, tell you it was unwise."

"Had you wanted me to stop?" said Strange, struck by the horrible thought that in his impulsiveness he had accidentally broken down some true resistance and trampled over Mr Norrell.

"That is the trouble," said Mr Norrell as he straightened his shirt. "I did not. I think, Mr Strange, that I would rather not spend any more time in company today."

"But we should discuss it."

"Your love of discussing things is beyond my comprehension."

"Not talking about it didn't do any good this time," said Strange, catching hold of Mr Norrell's wrist. Mr Norrell froze, as if terrified. Strange let him go and stepped back, filled with fear that Mr Norrell might break into some emotion Strange was not prepared for.

"I fully intend to go on with my previous course of action," said Mr Norrell just audibly. "This was a--misstep. We were, perhaps, both overtired."

"If that's what overtired looks like, I'd like to spend more time working myself too hard," said Strange. Mr Norrell blinked and drew back further. Strange wondered, fist tangled in his own coat, exactly what he had done so wrong. Mr Norrell was so very shuttered again.

"I have to go," said Mr Norrell, backing away a little.

"Please," said Strange before he could stop himself.

Mr Norrell blinked again. Uncharacteristically, he said "I'm sorry," before he went away.

-

Strange paced up and down the library, made toast, ate the toast, made an egg, threw the egg into the rubbish because it was too hard to eat, flung himself into research, and finally went to bed to sleep. He did not think of anything while he was lying in the dark, waiting to sleep.

Mr Norrell was not at the breakfast-table the next morning: there were signs that he had come and gone already, a wayward dab of marmalade here and a splash of chocolate there. So he had listened for Strange to fall asleep, and come out to have his own breakfast.

Strange put the kettle on for tea, but it boiled dry by the time he remembered about it. He wasn't really thirsty anyway, he decided.

The library was empty too. Strange's stomach churned. "I've broken it all," he said aloud to the library books. "I have damaged our friendship irreparably."

He considered this.

"Well, it's my prerogative, after he did," he said to the pen on the desk. "He's the one who hid things from me all those years. I had to find out by summoning a fairy and look where that got us."

The pen, not unexpectedly, did not offer any insights. Strange sighed and turned to the bust of Martin Pale. "He's intractable, is what he is. He'll never say anything clearly and how am I to know the right way of any thing when he won't tell me? I only want him to be easy with me."

He twiddled the pencil in his hand, frowning. "I don't think I'll ever understand him," he said to Martin Pale. "I do my best, but he doesn't operate according to the laws of you and me."

"Who doesn't?" said Mr Norrell from the doorway. Strange yelped and dropped his pencil.

"Don't sneak up on me!" he said, fetching the pencil from the floor to hide his face.

"I was not sneaking. I merely walk quietly."

"I was startled."

"So I understood from your yell."

"It was hardly a yell. It was a minor exclamation."

Mr Norrell gave him a doubtful look and sat down in a chair on the other side of the room. Strange's stomach went back to its previous position, for Mr Norrell's reappearance had lifted it for a moment.

"Who?" said Mr Norrell again, picking up the note-book he used for current inquiries.

"Oh. The fairy, you know, the one who put us in this Pillar."

"But he is dead, surely."

"That's what I meant."

Mr Norrell gave him another look. "Sometimes, Mr Strange, it appears to me that you are talking nonsense."

"It appears that way to me sometimes, too," muttered Strange, burying his nose in a book.

The ravens were not yet working, but they developed a way to scry outside the darkness. Something had been blocking it before; it was Mr Norrell who cast that aside.

He had been staying away from Strange for days. They would eat breakfast together, and go into the library together, and he would always take the farthest chair. He was very normal. He was just as he had always been in the days before they had had their argument, in the days where Strange had still been his apprentice. It was, if nothing else, a sharp reminder of the space between them.

At present he was standing at a little table.

"The basin works again," he said, peering into it. "It was only necessary to add a skimmer of supplication and to clarify where we are. It seems that the Darkness has a distorting effect on our local space."

Strange turned. "Who are you looking at?"

Mr Norrell made a face so brief that Strange was not sure he saw it and gestured over the basin. By the time Strange got there, it was the figure of a woman, whatever else it had been.

No. Not the figure of a woman. The figure of Arabella. Strange's heart stopped cold.

"She is in Venice," said Mr Norrell.

"We must go there," said Strange, clutching the basin. "We must."

"But the risk of finding another English magician--"

"Mr Norrell, I do not care."

Mr Norrell shrugged. "You know the spell for journeying -- you used it when you came to me."

Strange's hands were shaking as he dug through the books and papers on his desk. Yes, there it was.

He grew calmer as they went on there way. There was no way to come back to Arabella yet, but he could see her, and he could tell her that they were trying, and he could give her his wishes for what her life would be. And tell her that he would miss her.

-

It all sounded very well when he was there. When he came back to the house, lit only by thin and defiant candlelight, alone, he felt much less sanguine.

"We should have some supper," said Mr Norrell when Strange entered.

"I am not hungry," said Strange. "I think I'll go to bed."

"Wait--"

Strange turned and looked at Mr Norrell.

"I want to assist you, if I can," said Mr Norrell stiffly, twisting his fingers together. "I should not like to see your sorrow turn to unhealthy melancholy."

Strange had been going to say something snappish about melancholy and its relative merits, but he remembered then what Mr Norrell's last comfort of him had been. His breath hitched and his eyes went to Mr Norrell's lips. That was what he wanted, that obliteration of thought, but Mr Norrell had been very clear...

"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Mr Norrell in exasperation. "Stop looking like that. Come here."

Strange shuffled close. For the first time in days he caught the scent of Mr Norrell's skin. It was nothing particularly extraordinary -- clean skin and powder and something that Strange supposed was his soap. Strange had smelled it a great many times before, when Mr Norrell had brushed by him to pick up a book. It had lingered for an hour or two after they'd spent all that time sitting for the portrait together. It was the most familiar smell in the world, aside from Arabella's.

"Mr Strange," said Mr Norrell. "You are making me nervous."

Strange smiled weakly. "I'm sorry."

"I believe I understand what it is that you want," said Mr Norrell. "I hope you will not think me presumptuous, but I am reasoning from previous patterns regarding your actions during certain moods, and--"

"Mr Norrell. Please."

Mr Norrell cleared his throat, stood up on his toes, and kissed him. He did this with a great formality, his hands braced lightly on Strange's shoulders for balance and his body leaned carefully away. It was as though he expected to be told to stop at any moment, which was, frankly, ridiculous given that it had been Strange who had done this the last two times. The soft smell of his skin was stronger now, comforting in its mundanity. For a moment, the sense that all the world had fallen away passed; for a moment, he belonged to the world again.

Strange let him finish, not moving. "There," said Mr Norrell pulling away and looking up at Strange uncertainly, "I hope I have not in any way offended you."

"Do I seem offended?" said Strange, rocking back on his heels a little.

Mr Norrell said with nervous irritability, "I do not know!"

Strange gave a great and tired sigh. "Mr Norrell," he said, "would you be so kind as to accompany me to your bedroom?"

"Oh!" said Mr Norrell, going red in the face. "If it will help."

Strange smiled a little and took him by the elbow. He had a sense of what it was he wanted now, a sense of why he could not stop thinking about the last two times. And if they were to have a repetition again, he didn't want it to be frantic, or illicit. He wanted meaning, he wanted purpose. He wanted to take his time, to pry open Mr Norrell's shields and pare them all down to nothing. To linger so long over it that Mr Norrell was too desperate to maintain them.

It seemed a long walk to the bedroom, although Strange had chosen it because it would be closest. Mr Norrell slipped his elbow out of Strange's hand as they walked, folding in on himself a little. He was going very walled, very dusty, hiding up all the parts that made him interesting. That was why Strange hadn't seen it before: because Mr Norrell kept it hidden. Strange wondered why.

The bedroom was dark. Strange took the time to light candles: this was going to be something that needed to be seen. Mr Norrell sat down on the bed, his hands folded on his lap, staring down at the floor. Strange looked at him, at the soft arch of his neck hidden by his collar and at the way his cap caught the firelight and gleamed dark red.

"Are you well?" said Strange.

"Yes," said Mr Norrell. He looked up; his reading glasses were still on. Strange bent down and took them off, set them on the washstand. Mr Norrell looked older and younger with them off, the crinkles around his eyes sharper but the eyes themselves looked less distant, as if they were looking out from some place that was not quite so far inside himself as usual.

Strange had seen Mr Norrell without his spectacles a dozen of dozens times, and so why this should only now strike him he did not know. He sat down on the bed beside Mr Norrell.

"You can kiss me again, if you like," said Strange, leaning forward.

Mr Norrell seemed to take a breath to prepare himself. Again he kissed carefully, holding himself back. Did he feel that Strange was in a fragile state, because of Arabella? But roughness was just what Strange needed to bring him out of himself. He ought to have looked up those spells...

"You needn't be so careful," Strange whispered.

Mr Norrell looked away, and then tried again with more insistence, though no more surety. After a moment, he took Strange by the collar and pulled him closer. Strange pressed against him and nipped at his lip. There was a soft little gasp.

"I won't break," said Strange against his mouth.

"I _know_ that," said Mr Norrell, sounding irritated. "It's not that."

"Well," said Strange, and pressed in again. He tried to remember what it was that Mr Norrell had liked the last time (the official last time, as he thought of it), but they had been so fast, kissing had been a hasty affair snatched between movements. He tried slow and steady, then faster and rougher. The reactions did not seem to change.

He began to unbutton Mr Norrell's waistcoat. Though there was shirt beneath it, he could still feel the faint warmth of Mr Norrell's skin: he paused to kiss just above the collarbone, where the undercorset affair would not begin yet. The neckcloth, flapping loose, was discarded soon after.

He ran his hands up Mr Norrell's waist, and looked up.

Icy cold seemed to trickle down the back of his neck. "Mr Norrell? What's wrong?"

Mr Norrell shook his head and took his hands away. His face looked frozen, his shoulders stiff and hunched. His hands settled again in his lap, tightly clasped together. He would not look at Strange.

"Mr Norrell," said Strange, slipping down to kneel beside the bed, taking one of Mr Norrell's hands in his. "Sir. Please, have I offended you?"

Mr Norrell shook his head again and took his hand back.

"Will you tell me what I have done?" For surely this was the behavior of someone who had been offended, no matter what Mr Norrell said.

Mr Norrell twisted his hands together and seemed to reach very far inside of himself for words. "I cannot."

"Cannot tell me?"

Mr Norrell shook his head. "I thought I could, but I cannot, I cannot this time--"

"Cannot continue," said Strange. "Oh." Then it had not been Strange's frailty that Mr Norrell had been worried about. Strange was stricken with an awful nausea. "Oh, you did not want to--"

"I did," said Mr Norrell, unfolding a little. "But I could not, you see, I tried and it would not, it would not--"

"Mr Norrell," said Strange gently, "You need not try to speak until you feel calmer."

Mr Norrell nodded and sighed. After a few moments he unfolded a little more, and his hands began to move again, rubbing against each other in a steady motion. Strange knew that meant he was uneasy, but capable of talking.

"Now, what went wrong?"

Mr Norrell took a deep breath. "I do not know where to begin."

Strange climbed back up on the bed, sat down beside Mr Norrell. He seemed to talk better when he wasn't looking you in the eye. "You said you wanted to, but you couldn't?"

"Yes."

Strange sighed. "Could you explain that? Why couldn't you?"

Mr Norrell twisted his hands together again. "Because it went all wrong. The feeling of it."

"But the last two times--"

"Ah," said Mr Norrell, studying his own feet. "You see, the last two times I did not have time to think. That is, when we retired to bed the first time, there was some time, but I was able to convince myself that I was doing it for your benefit, and you see I was very...invested in the proceedings that that point, so I did not want to stop."

"My benefit!" said Strange, then remembered that he had in fact kissed Mr Norrell with the direct intention of his own benefit. "Oh. You were invested in the proceedings?"

Mr Norrell wiggled uncomfortably. "Please do not seize upon things I say in order to tease me."

Strange had been looking for reassurance more than amusement, but that answer sufficed. "What is it about having time to think that made you come over all frightened?"

"Thinking of how the last two times went."

Strange frowned. "I thought they were very good."

"Afterward, I meant."

"But you ignored me! You seemed entirely unaffected."

Mr Norrell looked at Strange in the face. "That is because I am very accustomed to appearing unaffected by your presence, but the guilt I felt--"

" _Accustomed_ to--"

They both stopped. Strange remembered he was supposed to be encouraging Mr Norrell to explain himself. "Go on."

"What I felt afterwards was unpleasant," said Mr Norrell, and fell silent.

"Guilt? Over what? There could be no question of coercion, I started it." Strange caught up Mr Norrell's hand again. "You must believe that I did, truly, desire it. Have you ever known me to do something I did not desire?"

"No," said Mr Norrell. "But that is not the point." There was a painful delicacy about his voice, a shivering tension. "I know, Mr Strange, that you know your own mind perfectly well. But consider how it reflects on me."

"It's unrespectable," said Strange a little sarcastically. "We hardly need fear disgrace any worse than we have already experienced. What do you fear? A hanging from a judicial system that can no longer touch us?"

" _No_ ," said Mr Norrell again.

Into the long silence, Strange said "Please tell me. I will not tease you again."

Mr Norrell sighed and began in his dry way, for all the world as though he was giving another magical lecture. "Consider, if you will, a picture of the sodomite. He is an older man of no particular charms, he is lonely, he turns his attention on men younger and more handsome than he and converts them to his perverse and unnatural ways. He grows feeble, unmasculine, and dies alone, abandoned by all except the boys who come around to blackmail him while he still has any money left at all."

Strange felt still sicker; he could not speak.

"All of my life," said Mr Norrell, with perfect precision and no emotion whatsoever, "I have known that that was the fate God had intended for me. I had not looked to find it coming true."

"It isn't," said Strange. "Apart from anything else, I do not think I qualify as young and handsome anymore."

"I am not comforted by levity, Mr Strange," said Mr Norrell in reproof.

Strange had been serious, but he moved on. "Besides that, we are not committing sodomy by any man's definition. The relevant, er, qualification is absent."

"That is the other half," said Mr Norrell. "I know what I _want_ to be; I know what I am. I do not like to be made too aware of the discrepancy between the two, which inevitably happens if I am given too much time to think." He took a very long and soft breath. "Moreover I know that your preference is for women, but it is not a desire that I am prepared to satisfy."

"No!" said Strange, the sick feeling in his stomach going hot then cold. "You must believe me on that point at least, I do not ask you to. You are not the first gentleman that I have had the pleasure of--well, suffice to say that while I certainly regard myself as happily married--" He had the sensation of tripping over his own tongue, of falling on a step you found certain. Arabella.

There was another long pause.

"You are not a substitute for my wife," said Strange. "You could not be. You have nothing in common. I feel certain I have her blessing in this...this. I do not expect you to be a _wife_." He smiled a little teasingly. "You'd be wretched at it."

Mr Norrell blinked rapidly. His voice sounded strained. "I am...very pleased to hear that. It relieves my mind. But it does not solve the other problems."

"I would like to help," said Strange, putting a hand very lightly on Mr Norrell's knee. "Here, I have a suggestion. If the barriers are in your thoughts, and in the way they have attacked you before, perhaps we could begin again. We could move more slowly."

Mr Norrell looked up. "Begin again?"

Strange took Mr Norrell's hand. "Does this make you feel any of the things you mentioned?"

"Not significantly."

Strange kissed the hand; Mr Norrell's breath caught. "And this?"

"N-no."

Strange kept hold of the hand and kissed Mr Norrell's mouth very gently, just once. "And that?"

"No," said Mr Norrell, in a voice so soft, so like a sigh, that Strange almost missed it.

"Then let us," said Strange, "begin there." He lay himself down on the bed, and pulled Mr Norrell down with him, eliciting a small angry squawk from Mr Norrell. "We can lay here for a little while and experiment, if you wish."

"We are not even in our night-clothes," said Mr Norrell, scandalized.

"You can put them on if you want," said Strange, "I won't peek."

Mr Norrell looked away. Strange put his arm over his eyes, raised the other hand in an _I surrender_ gesture. After a moment, he heard the hesitant rustle of cloth. So that was the secret: Mr Norrell did not want to be exposed mercilessly and all at once. He wanted the space and time in which to shed his layers, bit by bit.

"You may look now," said Mr Norrell. Strange lifted his arm to see Mr Norrell in nightshirt and dressing gown, but with no cap. That was one layer, anyhow.

Mr Norrell insisted that Strange should be properly dressed too, which necessitated going back to Ashfair to fetch something. Fortunately, the labyrinth allowed shortcuts. He brought the nightshirt back and laid it on the dresser. "You can peek, if you like," he told Mr Norrell with a crooked little grin.

Mr Norrell did. It was less the sort of hot admiring glance Strange had hoped for and more a faintly analytical, puzzled look, as if Mr Norrell was studying Strange and not quite sure how all the pieces fit together. As if there was something about Strange he had never understood, but meant to. Somehow, that made Strange come over all shivery just the way the admiring glances would have.

"Come to bed, Mr Strange," said Mr Norrell.

"Jonathan," said Strange. "That's a good start, isn't it? Call me Jonathan."

"Oh," said Mr Norrell very softly, as if he had not quite understood until now. "I have never liked Gilbert very much, but you are welcome to use it if you prefer."

"Perhaps I can come up with something better," said Strange, flinging himself down in bed in front of Mr Norrell, only just resisting the urge to giggle.

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet. We'll find out."

"So we will," said Mr Norrell. His breath stopped for a moment as Strange put an arm around him and pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head. Strange felt it start again, quick as the wing of a bird in flight. He felt Mr Norrell shift against him, hide his face in his shoulder.

"I am sensible of the honor you do me," Mr Norrell began, so absurdly stiff and formal that Strange began to laugh. "Jonathan. I am trying to tell you something important."

"I'm very sorry. Go on."

"Thank you," said Mr Norrell, "for your patience."

"If it's taught you to say thank-you, the whole endeavor was worthwhile in the end," said Strange.

Mr Norrell made a disgruntled sound and sank his head back into Strange's shoulder with a sigh. And after all, wasn't this another layer too? Intimacy, the stripping of barriers, was not all conducted in one fashion. This, too, was a side of Mr Norrell that Strange had never seen.

 _We'll get there,_ thought Strange, _in the end._ They had all the time in the world: all hours were midnight now.


End file.
